On the use of OTP...

[butterfly]

So, I actually have different kinds of OTPness.

1. Ultimate and complete One True Pairing, cannot picture either one of the characters with anyone else as long as the option to be with their OTP exists. Doctor/Rose falls into this category, as well as Zoe/Wash (from Firefly) and Fraser/Kowalski (due South). With the Doctor and Rose, their OTP nature

Comments

[butterfly]

Usually the first. With my OTPs, I can imagine them with other people only before they get together, and even then, those previous relationships weren't with people as eminently suited to them as they are to each other. It's like, I can like Four/Romana because that was a long time before he met Rose, but once he did meet Rose, I can't imagine him with anyone else, even after they're separated.

I was totally planning on liking Four/Romana when I got into the show... and then I watched them in action and thought they were more like buddies. Very Ten/Donna, actually, if you ignore the glaring personality differences.

I did find Three/Jo 'shippable, though.

But yeah, now that he's met Rose... he gave so much of himself to her. I can't see him doing that again.

Occasionally I will write fic that contradicts my OTP (like in Harry Potter, my OTP was Remus/Sirius, and I had no serious interest in considering him with anyone else as long as he and Sirius could be together, but I've actually written him with a multitude of other people). That's not very often, though, because I usually tend to latch onto one pairing and ship it pretty exclusively.

I've done that, too. Both in writing and in vidding (oh, all the ways in which I totally do not ship Buffy/Riley... yet I made a very sincerely hopeful vid about them).

[rynne]

Heh. I found Three/Jo way too parental to ship. Four/Romana I could see as friends with benefits, but not anything more. But like you said, he just gave too much of himself to Rose for me to find any other ship believable after he met her.

I have a friend who said she thought OTPing in DW was missing the point a bit, and that just boggled my mind.

[settiai]

And I'm going to jump in here for a second...

I'll admit, I'm one of those people who honestly can't see having an OTP when it comes to the Doctor Who fandom. Not that I have anything against people who do have OTPs in this fandom! (Noted so butterfly won't kill me in my sleep or anything come VVC. Not to mention the other hardcore Doctor/Romana, Doctor/Rose, Doctor/Master, Seven/Ace, Five/Tegan, Two/Jamie, etc. fans on my friends list. :-P) It's just that I, personally, have trouble wrapping my brain around having an OTP involving the Doctor.

I'll admit, I think that part of it's because I'm firmly set in a multi-shipping viewpoint. I've never been one for OTPs, and that's definitely carried over some into this fandom. Still... I just have trouble seeing how an alien who, pretty much without exception, is going to outlive anyone he's involved with could have one relationship that would forever outshine any others he might possibly have. Especially since previous canon has shown us that, with every regeneration, there's a definite change in personality. While I think Rose was the perfect companion for the Ninth Doctor, whether in a romantic or platonic sense, I don't think she would be compatible with - say - the Sixth Doctor. Or possibly a hypothetical Eleventh Doctor.

There are definitely some people in fandom who mean it as "I don't enjoy OTPing in DW, therefore no one else ought to." But there are some of us who don't have a problem with other people OTPing - we just have trouble seeing it for ourselves. If that makes any sense. :-/

[settiai]

Oh, no argument from me there. I'm not a fan of people telling anyone that they're wrong because of a pairing they 'ship or a character they like. There's enough room in fandom for everybody, or - at least - there should be.

[butterfly]

Noted so [info]butterfly won't kill me in my sleep or anything come VVC.

Hee!

I can understand why many people don't OTP the Doctor with anyone. He'll live for quite a long period of time and keeps changing his appearance and personality. Plus, he's arrogant, insufferably clever, and prone to insults.

[spiletta42]

You know, I was in the antiship camp for Doctor Who (not the loud obnoxious portion of said camp, just quietly in my own head) for quite a long time, but Rose broke me. There's really something very special there.

[butterfly]

There really is. Part of it because they really did take their time -- we saw these two people get to know each other and their steps along the way to love and attraction.

[butterfly]

But like you said, he just gave too much of himself to Rose for me to find any other ship believable after he met her.

Yep. That's why I've found the side attempts so... odd. Because they all had so much less substance than D/R, so I couldn't work up how I was supposed to care. At least not from his point of view.